A Friend Gone Much Too Soon
This blog is about a friend of mine named Chuck Beckler. He died last week. I will miss him for a very long time.
So I got the sad call at the end of a warm and sunny day in May of this year. It came from another friend and she tearfully told me that our dear friend Chuck had passed away. And, of course it was a shock as all calls of that kind are, but not totally unexpected. He’d been ill – off and on – for quite a while. Mainly heart problems – he’d had multiple stents implanted in his heart vessels over the last number of years, plus an open heart surgery a number of years ago. And a heart attack or two along the way. But he seemed to be, as all of us who knew him thought, a survivor. For as out of shape he was, and he’d be the first to admit as such, he was doing all right. Then this awful virus came along last year and apparently he caught it. I guess after the initial misery and a hospital stay, he was sent home with an oxygen mask and that was to be his companion for the rest of his life.
I’ve been lucky in my own life and had been blessed with several best friends. He was my first. Chuck and I met back in grade school – maybe around fourth grade, give or take a year or two? Our family had moved and that had necessitated a change of schools for us kids. And Chuck went to that new school. We hit it off quickly and become best friends. Around that time we also became Boy Scouts and shared the passion of belonging to the best organization for boys in the world. We loved the camping trips, canoeing, learning the skills of Scouting plus enjoying the energetic camaraderie of pre-teens and teens. Between school and Scouts we spent a whole lot of time together. I’m sure his folks thought I was one of their own kids from time to time as often as I was there at their home.
Chuck and I even had newspaper delivery routes that adjoined!
To be honest, we raised a little hell in those days too. Nothing major to be sure, but we weren’t little angels either. Looking back I’d call us just a couple normal kids doing normal things for that time period.
We passed through grade school and junior high together, hanging out, goofing off and doing all the things kids did who were friends. In high school we belonged to a group of boys – some called us a gang. We called ourselves “The Lads”. We really did nothing too outlandish. We went to the local teen places and dances all dressed alike. And boy that was fun! We even got mistaken for the band at a couple of the school dances! Chuck, I and a lot of our friends inhabited a strata in the local high school cliques a bit above the “hoods” who actually were criminally inclined and the “popular folks” and “jocks” cliques who were kind of above us. We had a lot of fun and really enjoyed each other’s company.
After we graduated high school in ‘65 we both had major decisions to make. This was when the Vietnam war was really ramping up and most of us guys of that age were REAL likely to be drafted. I don’t think we wanted to leave the choice of how we would be spending the next few years to the draft board or the Army. We eventually decided to take different paths. Chuck’s dad was a Marine and he decided to follow in his footsteps. He volunteered for that branch and was accepted. He went to boot camp. Not long after that my path led to the Air Force, also as a volunteer and I was soon also in boot camp. Chuck and I saw each other a couple times during our stints in the service during leaves and such, but not a whole lot. He ended up getting married in that time period and started a family. I did not. (He was still WAY ahead of me in the girl department!) He also saw things and did things “over there” that would haunt him the rest of his life. I was privy to hear some of his war stories and would shudder as he recounted some of the more bloody ones. Or, to be honest, laugh at some of the goofy things he was involved in over there. (Ask me someday about the mongoose story.) He was proud of his time in the Marine Corps, had patriotically done his duty, and to his last day still considered himself a Marine and was proud of it. And I thanked God for his service and also thanked God that I would NOT have memories as terrible as his were. I did my four years for my country and helped support in some small way his endeavors. He was one of America’s brave men who really paid the price of that miserable war. It was also in that time period that he was exposed to Agent Orange and that exposure was also undoubtedly a factor in his final demise.
Our lives touched from time to time after our stints in the military. We both came back to this area after serving our country and worked and went to school. He moved west for a while to the Bucyrus area, selling ice cream if memory serves, then returned to Wooster sometime later. I won’t pretend we saw each other every day during that period, but we’d occasionally get together to go fishing or hunting or to just sit down, chew the fat and drink a few beers. We were still friends. And still pursuing careers, raising families and sustaining, as well as we could, our marriages. He was even the best man at my wedding in 1972!
Let me tell you something important before I continue. I considered Chuck one of a couple guys who were the most instrumental in making me the man I am today. He was the one, very early on, who’d metaphorically had taken my hand and shown me that girls were NOT the scary ethereal creatures that I kinda thought they were. He showed me that they were just as curious about us guys as we were about them. He put me in situations where I had to talk to them, dance with them and try (lord I tried) to be comfortable with them. He was a good looking guy, comfortable with himself and had LOTS of girlfriends. I was, well, at least in my mind, not so much in the looks department and definitely NOT experienced with the opposite sex. And wow was I shy! He convinced me that I COULD date girls and COULD be better in the boy/girl thing. If it hadn’t been for Chuck I’d probably been a wallflower and God knows where I’d have ended up. I will bless him for his helping hand to my last day.
Chuck was in a couple marriages in those years. I won’t dwell on them as I considered his triumphs and trials as his business. If he was standing here I’m sure he could “fill in the blanks” as he saw fit, but I won’t. I’m sure there are others here who could tell many stories about those years.
He and I started being closer after he married the love of his life, Pam. We wondered, at first, what he saw in this southern girl with all the sass, but we also grew quickly to love her. She was definitely the yin to his yang and the wind in his sails. We got together many, many times during this period of his life. Our New Year’s Eve shindigs became a tradition for both our families and our friends. We’d have a few drinks, tell tall tales, eat wonderful hors d'oeuvres, watch the ball drop on television at midnight and eat the obligatory pork ‘n sauerkraut. Later we’d make our way home in the cold starry night of the new year, or they’d do the same. It was the exclamation point for the previous year and always opened the new one properly.
I’m not sure how we’re going to accomplish that now…
My wife and I discovered ocean cruising around 2010 and immediately fell in love with it. Being on the ocean in a big ship, being waited on hand and foot by the marvelous crew, meeting all sorts of compatible people and waking up each morning to a new country outside the “front” door was exhilarating and intoxicating in equal parts.
We just had to show our friends.
So in 2012 we cruised with another couple, Alice and Dan, and they took to it also, loving the ambiance of the big ships. And, at last, in 2014, Chuck and Pam joined Alice and Dan and us for another cruise. We sailed from San Juan, Puerto Rico and visited a number of other Caribbean islands. Chuck had suffered one of his heart attacks only a few weeks before the cruise, but was lucky enough to get the OK from his docs to go with us. We had a great time, touring the islands, seeing the wildlife there and visiting beaches that were known globally as some of the most beautiful ones in the world. Gazing at the blue, blue waters and watching the flying fishes leap from wave to wave while the ship was on the move were wonderful parts to our voyage. We ate great food, saw amazing sights and during the trip Alice and Pam became best buddies! They enjoyed each others company like long-lost sisters. And that friendship lasted throughout the remainder of Pam’s life.
In 2015 Chuck and I took a road trip on our own. Our old friend from childhood, Neal, had taken a turn for the worse, health-wise, and Chuck thought we should go see him while we were able. We visited with him for a couple days in the small Kansas town he was living in at that time. We shared memories of the “old days” and caught each other up on our doings over the intervening years. Neal had made a bad choice in the ‘60’s and had paid the price by serving a number of years in prison. He’d made a new life for himself after his incarceration and was happy to describe how he had accomplished that turnaround. It was an interesting and enjoyable trip. While there we dined one evening at a local Mexican restaurant. When we left I looked back and noted the name of the restaurant was “La Casa Grande”. I laughed and told Neal – of course you’d take us to a place to eat named “the Big House!”
I believe Neal passed away the next year. He’d been on heavy dialysis for a few years and unfortunately was ineligible for a kidney transplant. He’d been our friend (and Chuck’s neighbor) since the very early ‘60’s.
Judy and I cruised with another friend and his wife in 2017 to Alaska, Larry and Sally. His family sailed with us also, so there were ten of us at the dining room table that trip. It was a very enjoyable cruise.
Then in 2018 we again sailed with Alice and Dan. We embarked on this one from New Orleans. Chuck and Pam joined us on the New Orleans portion of the vacation which was the embarkation port for that cruise. They had other things they needed to do, so were unable to sail with us that time. We, however, definitely did enjoy their company while we were there in the Crescent City, touring the French Quarter in a mule-pulled wagon, eating the wonderful Cajun and Creole food and enjoying each others company. We were sad to say goodbye on our embarkation day when we each went our separate ways.
Chuck and Pam were in our lives a lot in those days. We joined them for cookouts at their camper, fishing trips on their pontoon boat and spent other good times together as the world and time permitted. We were long-time friends enjoying our later years.
Pam got really sick in 2019 and we lost her that spring. Chuck made a brave face of it, but we all know he was hurt badly by losing her.
Then the Covid-19 struck last year and in the winter Chuck got it. It affected his lungs probably the worst, and he was sent home with an oxygen tank as his new companion. Judy and I stayed hunkered down that year, staying away from everyone, but I did make a point to call Chuck a time or two to see how he was faring. That’s when I learned about his contracting the virus and his oxygen dependency. He was, however, upbeat about getting better and had many plans on where and when he was going to go fishing when he got better.
I talked to him the Saturday before he passed. He was still upbeat even then and sounded like the Chuck I used to know, laughing and joking around about this and that. We talked about fishing again. He was truly a fanatic about going fishing. I hung up after our conversation feeling optimistic about his chances and wished him well in my heart.
And then I got the call on Friday and all those rosy plans that us humans like to make came to a screeching halt.
So how do I sum up a lifetime’s friendship with Chuck Beckler? Over the years he had been a teacher, a student (I taught him how to quit smoking), a confidant, the best man at my wedding, an ear on the other end of the phone, a shipmate, a brother-in-arms and the best friend a guy could ever have. My life will certainly be less rich now that he’s gone, less vivid and less fun. His wise words about the future have now been lost. It’s been said by others that the day he passed, if one could listen closely enough, you’d hear Pam yelling at him in her distinctive Kentucky twang as to why it took so long for him to join her. I would answer her question, if I could, by saying he needed to make a lot of our lives better and happier by sticking around down here for a little while longer.
